by Iain Cameron
She was sure it would be her turn in the morning and no way could she put up with it. She’d decided not to make a move until nightfall, which was also the time when one or two of the kidnappers came down to the cells and selected a girl for their evening’s entertainment.
A few minutes before, a girl a few cells down was carried kicking and screaming towards the bunkhouse. As they came past her cell, Mr Weasel-Face, the skinny guy who had doctored their drinking water on the bus coming here, stopped and looked at her through the bars.
‘I’m looking forward to having this one, Dmitri, aren’t you? We are going to have such fun. Have sweet dreams darling thinking of me naked.’
‘Come on Nicholae, Vasile will be becoming impatient and you know what he’s like when he becomes angry.’
‘I can handle Vasile and his moods, I’m just having a little chat with this lovely one here. See you later, my love.’
After they left, Veronika waited ten minutes before removing a hairgrip from her hair and walking towards the cell door. Like many of the women on her bus, she didn’t have a grand job like working in an office or the warm cafeteria of a factory, she worked in a shop. Not a mindless place like a supermarket, selling bottles of strong vodka to people like her father, but an ironmonger.
Her shop stocked the usual selection of mouse bait, clothes cleaners and various electrical plugs and cables, but also a large range of security equipment including burglar alarms and locks. In her spare time, she taught herself how to open locks without a key and to disable alarms without knowing the code.
The stupid kidnappers only saw bars and a lock and believed their captives were secure, not realising the cell was fitted with one of the simplest two-lever locks you could buy. A lock of this type was ideal for kennels as dogs couldn’t pick locks, but no barrier to someone who could.
She bent the hairgrip and inserted a prong into the lock. When she made contact with the levers she twisted her wrist sharply and heard the lock slide back. She stopped to listen. This place didn’t often fall silent, if it wasn’t the guards standing outside the bunkhouse smoking and baiting one another, it was girls sobbing or the dogs at the far end of the cell building barking. They seemed to bark at their own shadow and they were barking now, making it difficult for Veronika to hear any other noises.
In planning her escape, she dreaded walking out of this building, tasting the fresh air of freedom for thirty seconds, only for a heavy fist to knock her to the ground before dragging her back.
If she could open her cell door and providing her hairgrip would last the pace, did it make sense to open all the other cell doors? It would be the Christian thing to do, but she decided not to. She would stand a better chance of getting away on her own and, when free, she would alert the authorities as to the plight of the other women here. If she did try and open the other cell doors, it would take time and be more difficult for ten women to escape than one. It would also waste time in which the kidnappers could return, perhaps intent on finding another woman. Maybe the one they took away earlier tonight was now exhausted or didn’t meet their expectations as she cried too much.
She pushed open the cell door, stepped outside and closed it. Luckily for her, she was in the cell at the start of the line and didn’t have to walk past the other women. Their shrieks and shouts would surely raise the alarm.
The cells opened out into a corridor, more concrete, with a door at the end leading outside. She could see the light switch but didn’t switch it on, instead feeling for the door handle in the dark. No need to use the hairgrip here; the door was open, no doubt to allow the guards easy access, and complacency derived from the sight of a row of barred cells.
She stepped outside and froze when a security light switched on, flooding the yard in front of her in a stark white light.
‘These fucking foxes again,’ a voice at the door of the bunkhouse said. ‘Why doesn’t Nicholae let us shoot them?’
‘Because he knows how good a shot you are, you stupid motherfucker. You’d miss and kill someone.’
The men traded insults for several minutes which, to Veronika felt like hours, before the security light switched off and, a minute or so later, the door of the bunkhouse door slammed shut. From her position, out of sight of the men at the door, she’d used the illumination offered by the light to plan her escape route.
She recognised the yard where they had assembled on the evening of their arrival, and could see the track they had travelled on and knew it led to a public road. The bonus of the light buoyed her spirits as she didn’t have a good sense of direction and may have blundered into the copse of trees bordering both sides of the track.
She made sure the door behind her was shut and, after taking a deep breath, ran towards the track. As soon as she stepped out, the security light switched on, but a quick glance in the direction of the bunkhouse told her no one was looking. She now knew what her grandmother felt like when she used to tell Veronika stories about how they smuggled food for her mother and sister under the noses of the Germans during the war.
Her lungs were aching as she flew down the track, but no way would she stop running until many kilometres were between her and this awful place. The ground was uneven and she had to look down as often as she looked up to ensure she didn’t step into a pot hole or break her ankle on a loose rock.
From nowhere, a shadow appeared in front of her
and before she could do anything to avoid it, they collided, knocking them both on the ground. Her heart sank when she realised it wasn’t an animal or the fallen branch of a tree, but a man. She fought like a wild cat but his grip was strong and in seconds he had her on the ground with her arm behind her back. He put his knee on her back, stopping her moving.
He leaned over and said something in her ear but she couldn’t hear for her own sobbing, a strange strangled noise as the man’s knee was restricting her heaving chest. She then heard a word she recognised.
‘What…what did you say?’
‘Keep calm. You’re safe now. My name is Phil Bentley, I’m a policeman.’
FORTY
‘Oh, hello Vicky,’ DI Henderson said looking up from the email he was writing. ‘Come in and take a seat at the meeting table.’ He walked over to join her.
She’d been on compassionate leave since the shooting at Mathieson Transport a couple of days ago, and looking at her now, he wasn’t sure she was ready to return.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Ah, I’m fine now. I’m annoyed with myself for taking it so bad as he didn’t really threaten us. Well he did a bit, but I didn’t feel at any time we were in danger.’
‘I understand, but it’s not a pleasant sight, seeing someone shoot themselves. It would spook anyone.’
‘Not Ted Mathieson. He was upset at his mate being killed, yes, but he seemed unfazed by all the blood and gore.’
‘There will obviously be an official inquiry into Steve Hedland’s death and an internal inquiry here and at the NCA. In each of them, you will be required to give evidence, focussing on you and your fellow NCA officer’s behaviour.’
‘I understand.’
‘In my opinion, you’ve got nothing to worry about, as I feel the operation was carried out by the book. Steve Hedland’s suicide could not have been anticipated in your risk assessment and there was nothing you or Officer Walker could have done differently to stop it.’
‘Thank you, sir. It’s good to know.’
‘On the subject of Ted Mathieson,’ Henderson said, changing the subject, ‘he was interviewed yesterday. He lawyered-up but didn’t give us a record number of ‘no comments’ as we expected, instead he admitted being an importer of drugs.’
‘Excellent news.’
‘He couldn’t do much else with the weight of evidence against him. The way he tells it he was undertaking a public service, helping busy professional people like lawyers and television executives to function at their best.’
‘What bollocks.
He’s forgetting something, his delivery wasn’t all coke. There was some heroin in there too, and in any case, if he felt so public spirited, why didn’t he donate all the profits to charity or the smart school his kid attended?’
‘It’s all flannel, designed to vindicate his champagne lifestyle. In fact, if not for the dope, the financial forensic guys I’ve got analysing his accounts say his business would have gone to the wall about three years ago.’
‘He’s been doing it for that long?’
‘It seems so. Like we discussed before, I didn’t want to bring him to trial just for the amount of drugs you and the NCA lads seized. If the accountants can prove he’s been injecting cash into his company for a good few years, it will prove he’s been a serious importer all this time. This should be enough for the CPS to mount a cast-iron case against him.’
‘I’m glad to hear something good came out of the raid. It was starting to look like a PR disaster. One man dead and Mathieson bleating about underhand police tactics.’
‘Don’t you worry about that but there’s more. When Mathieson started talking about how his side of the operation worked, he coughed up more information about Charlie McQueen’s business than he intended.’
‘How come?’
‘He was happy to describe meetings with his buyer, without naming names, visits to Devil’s Dyke and all the rest. When we asked him what happened to the drugs when he handed them over, he refused to say anything that would implicate his old pal Charlie McQueen.’
‘Loyalty among thieves? I don’t believe it.’
‘Self-preservation more like. He doesn’t need another enemy, especially one like Charlie McQueen. All he would say was he brought the goods into the country, took the money and thought no more about it until the next delivery. He didn’t know what happened afterwards except his buyers took the bags to a place where the contents were diluted with some other white substance and divided into smaller packets.’
‘Par for the course.’
‘He didn’t know where it was or who worked there, but said they called it the biscuit factory.’
She shook her head. ‘Means nothing to me.’
‘From Mathieson’s perspective, he didn’t think he was ratting on his mates, after all, it could be a code word or a nickname for one of the processes they used. If it’s a place, there could be a dozen or hundreds of old biscuit factories dotted around London and the south-east.’
‘Fair enough, but I think you know what it means.’
‘In Shoreham on an industrial estate near the port, there’s an old building converted into dozens of small commercial units called The Pinnacle. Before the war, it was a biscuit factory making custard creams and digestive biscuits, but it closed in the 1960s when the company moved production to Poland. Biscuits haven’t been made on the site for more than fifty years, but nobody locally or anyone working there calls it The Pinnacle. They all call it the biscuit factory.’
‘How can you be sure it’s the right place?’
‘I informed the Drugs Unit and they put The Pinnacle under surveillance. In one particular unit, they noticed a number of small-time dealers going in and out in addition to several well-known faces who they assumed to be workers. Just when they were about to raid the place, Charlie McQueen rolled up and went inside. When they carried out the raid, McQueen couldn’t plead innocence, that he was there simply to score a deal for himself, as there he was with his mitts all over the takings.’
‘Brilliant,’ Neal said smiling. ‘I imagine he’s pleading no comment.’
‘Gerry’s been dealing with him, but with his dabs all over the inside of the unit, no way can he plead that he made a mistake and wandered into the wrong building, or that he went in there to talk to a mate.’
‘He’ll try.’
‘Let him, but we’ve also got this: the crew working there installed CCTV. This was to allow someone sitting in the office to monitor movement outside, give them early warning of the approach of rival gangs or police narks.’
‘Did they use a recorder?’
‘They did, and when the tapes were full, they chucked them in a box, unwrapped a new one and stuck it straight in.’
‘The careless habits of the filthy rich.’
‘We’ve now got a couple of months’ worth and I’m sure we’ll see Charlie McQueen’s mug on camera a few more times.’
‘A lot’s happened since I’ve been away.’
‘It’s always the same at the tail-end of a large investigation, but that’s enough for one week.’
‘Right, I better crack on, there’s a lot to be done.’
She left the office with a spring in her step, leaving Henderson surprised at the transformation he’d just witnessed. When he first saw her, he believed he would be sending her home for a few more days, but now it seemed like her old self had returned. He would watch her over the next few days as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder could strike without warning. Not every incident triggered it and not every person was affected by it, but he would keep a watchful eye nevertheless.
**
Ten minutes after Vicky Neal left Henderson’s office, someone else walked in who equally could be suffering from PTSD: Veronika Kardos. She wasn’t alone, but in the company of a woman from Action for Trafficked Women, Hilary Johns.
Veronika had colour in her cheeks, flesh on her bones, her short blonde hair looked glossy and on her pretty, unmarked face she wore a huge smile. She walked over and threw her arms around him and held him tight.
‘Thank you so much for saving me.’
She pulled away from him, still smiling. Henderson showed her to a seat around the meeting table.
‘How are you, Veronika, after your horrible ordeal?’
This was the first time Henderson had spoken to her since Phil Bentley picked her up on Saturday. He would have liked to have interviewed her yesterday, but Veronika didn’t feel able and said she needed to go to church. Twice.
‘I am so pleased to be free. I am now living with a good family where I have many hot showers and lovely meals.’
‘You speak excellent English.’
‘Thank you. My father taught English Literature at Budapest University for many years, but lost his job when he published some leaflets criticising the government. We moved to the country after my mother took ill. She died only two months later and he turned to alcohol, but he still made me speak English at every opportunity.’
He turned to the woman from ATW, Hilary Johns. ‘It’s good to meet you, Hilary and thanks for bringing Veronika along today.’
‘Pleased to meet you too, Inspector.’
Henderson sorted out drinks and then got down to the real business of the day.
‘I’d like you to tell me what happened to you, Veronika.’
She explained about the journey home from the ironmonger’s shop in town and the long walk along country roads after the bus dropped her off in a downpour.
‘It’s a familiar story, I’m afraid, Inspector,’ Johns said. ‘These evil men prey on vulnerable women, kidnapping them, often in broad daylight, on quiet country roads.’
‘When and how did they bring you here to the UK?’
‘This is Monday, so I came here last Thursday, by minibus. They didn’t give us much water on the journey and about half an hour before we reached the border they handed out water bottles. We all drank because we were thirsty and the next thing we know we are in the countryside and being told to get out of the bus.’
‘You were drugged,’ Henderson said, stating the obvious for everyone’s benefit. ‘What happened then?’
Veronika went on to describe the place they were held. Henderson got up, walked over to his desk and brought over some of Cindy Longhurst’s photographs, now printed on A4 paper.
‘Is this the place?’ he said showing Veronika the photographs Cindy took of the low concrete buildings out in the woods.
She puzzled over the first picture for a few moments. ‘I’ve never seen it before f
rom a distance.’ She picked up another picture. ‘Yes, this one shows it better. There,’ she said pointing at one end of the building in the photograph, ‘this is the cell where I was kept.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘I recognise the yard there, the track with the forest beside and through the trees you can just see the roof of the bunkhouse. Yes, I’m sure this is the correct place.’
‘Where did you get these photographs, Inspector?’ Johns asked. ‘Have you known about this place for some time?’
He explained the source of the photographs but Hilary’s suspicions remained. If the police knew about this place, why didn’t they close it sooner?
‘What will happen to the other women there?’ Veronika said.
‘Once we have finished our meeting, and you’ve told me everything you know about this place, we will mount a raid and close it down.’
‘Good.’
‘Why were you kept there? I assume this place wasn’t your final destination.’
‘They said the house we were supposed to go and work inside was having some building work done and wasn’t ready yet. There were no vacancies in the other brothels,’ she said, the disgust evident in her tone.
‘They made no secret of what they wanted you to do?’
‘No, we knew what they were intending to do with us. This is why I had to escape.’ She went on to explain how the men in the bunkhouse came every night to the cells and selected a girl, ‘to break her in’ as they called it.
The anger he felt at the level of degradation and exploitation these women were suffering was on the point of boiling over, but he took several deep breaths to calm himself.
‘So,’ he said, ‘the low building here in the picture currently contains the other women who came over from Hungary with you?’
‘Yes.’
Henderson had left a surveillance team watching the site and instructed them to call at the first sign of movement. Veronika’s escape could have caused panic among the traffickers and there was a good chance they were now making plans to evacuate, but his watchers had seen nothing yet. Perhaps with no place to send the women they had no choice but to wait it out or they assumed she was lying dead in a field after falling and breaking her leg.
